The primary limitation of the Amazon Echo and Alexa is it sits in one room of your house. If you are outside of that room, it just can't hear you and react, although it's multiple microphones make it very effective at hearing - even over music, from across a room.
Fortunately Amazon has several accessories including the Amazon Dot which acts as a satellite. Many folks will have one Echo, and use Dots or Taps in other rooms. So far we have two Dots and a remote complementing the Echo in our Smart Home project.
The Amazon Echo is a great device for many purposes, especially controlling home automation gear. Adding Amazon Echo Dots makes life better. Music, news, other capabilities are cool but controlling lighting,...
In our review of the Lutron Caseta wireless system, we will discuss their Smart Bridge, individual dimmers and switches, interfacing their Smart Bridge with your Wifi, and of course, installing...
If there is one aspect of voice control/personal assistants that really stood out in terms of announcements, it was the number of companies now supporting Amazon Alexa. This is a...
Amazon Echo is a voice activated personal assistant, and so much more. Designed to deliver superb voice control and instant access to information, including music, it can make your life...
When I chose A to Z Smart Home Ecosystems for a title to this group of articles, it seemed natural, since four of the major "environments" that I loosely dub "eco-systems" are Apple HomeKit...
In building their eco-system, Apple's kept it somewhat closed, as they have their own standards. HomeKit is the "home" of those standards for home automation. If a company wants their...
Welcome to our Smart Home discussion of Personal Assistant based home automation eco-systems The two most, well known, geared for the mass market personal assistants developed at this time, are...
